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Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 6 (2015)

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Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 6 (2015) Futhark International Journal of Runic Studies Main editors James E. Knirk and Henrik Williams Assistant editor Marco Bianchi Vol. 6 · 2015 Published with financial support from the Nordic Publications Committee for Humanist and Social Sciences Periodicals (NOP-HS) © Contributing authors 2016 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License All articles are available free of charge at http://www.futhark-journal.com A printed version of the issue can be ordered through http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-274828 Editorial advisory board: Michael P. Barnes (University College London), Klaus Düwel (University of Göttingen), Lena Peterson (Uppsala University), Marie Stoklund (National Museum, Copenhagen) Typeset with Linux Libertine by Marco Bianchi University of Oslo Uppsala University ISSN 1892-0950 Contents Foreword ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 Staffan Fridell. Tendenser i skrifttecknens utveckling: Alfabet och runor . 7 Levi Damsma and Arjen Versloot. Vowel Epenthesis in Early Germanic Runic Inscriptions ......................................................................................................................... 21 Per Holmberg. Svaren på Rökstenens gåtor: En social semiotisk analys av menings skapande och rumslighet ..................................................................................... 65 Magnus Källström. Gravhällsfragmentet från Tornby i Fornåsa i Öster- götland och utvecklingen av några medeltida run former ................................ 107 Michael P. Barnes. Two Recent Runic Finds from Orkney .................................... 143 Martin Findell. The Portormin (Dunbeath) Runestone ............................................. 153 Short Notices Magnus Källström. Till tolkningen av ristar signaturen på G 343 från S:t Hans ruin i Visby ........................................................................................................................... 171 Magnus Källström. Den målade runtexten i Torpa kyrka (Ög 218) ................. 177 Reviews Runestudiar: Festskrift til Jan Ragnar Hagland. Eds. Ivar Berg, Arnold Dalen, and Karin Fjellhammer. Reviewed by James E. Knirk ........................ 183 Lars Magnar Enoksen. Runor: Mästarens handbok. Reviewed by Henrik Williams ............................................................................................................................................... 187 Contributors ............................................................................................................................................. 193 Foreword This sixth volume ofFuthark contains a broad range of contributions of a linguistic, cultural-historical and in particular field-runological nature from the earliest until modern times. The journal obviously fills the need with in runic studies for a regular scholarly publication. Three of the pre- vi ous issues, vols. 1 and 4–5, were dedicated almost exclusively to the dis sem ination of selected papers from the Sixth and Seventh International Sym posium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions respectively. A journal is not the ideal medium for conference proceedings, but in these cases other options were inferior and, furthermore, Futhark was new and therefore could offer space. The selected papers from the Eighth Sym posium, held in Nyköping in 2014, will be published in the series Runrön as volume 21, and it is to be hoped that future symposium pub li- cations will find similar outlets. We are pleased to note an increase in the number of manuscript sub- missions for publication in Futhark and, should all contributions prove acceptable, we already have nearly enough material for the next issue. All the same, please continue to submit scholarly manuscripts for consid- er ation. Several reviews are also in preparation. The acknowl edge ment and critical examination of new book-length contributions to our field is one of our journal’s most important undertakings. We would like to en- cour age more debate and hope that the current contributions will spark some, despite this issue’s sad lack of critical engagement with previous articles. Given that the community of scholars engaged in runic studies is so widespread and relatively small in number and that it meets face- to-face and in plenum on average only every fifth year, energetic debate must in the meantime be promoted via other channels, such as this one. The contributors to this volume are thanked for their patience during the editorial process and for their willingness to accept our uncom pro- mising standards and, for many authors, somewhat unfamiliar guide lines on style and formatting. In addition, the anonymous peer reviewers are thanked for their profound contributions to the quality of Futhark. The editors would also like to express their deepest gratitude to Mindy Mac- Leod, who has taken over the task of English language consultant, for her readi ness to check everything.—.usually on very short notice. Please do not forget to order your printed copy of Futhark, vol. 6. James E. Knirk Henrik Williams Tendenser i skrifttecknens utveckling: Alfabet och runor Staffan Fridell (Uppsala University) Abstract Two scholars in semiotics, William C. Watt and Herbert E. Brekle, have each made significant contributions to the history of alphabets by systematizing and generalizing empirical observations on the historical development of the writ­ten characters of Western alphabets. Watt made an important distinction between visual lines and other segments of the characters (phanemes) on the one hand, and the movements made with the writing tool to form the char- acters (kinemes) on the other. He stressed the importance of the latter aspect of writ ing for the change and development of the alphabet signs. When applied to runology this means, according to the present author, that the process of carving runes, particularly into wood with a knife, was vital in determining the development of their shapes over time. Watt distinguishes three important tendencies or trends in the development of written characters, i.e. facilitation: reducing the effort and thereby increasing the speed of writing, homogenization: making the characters more like each other, and heterogenization: making the char acters more different from each other. Brekle supplements this with three principles, vectoriality: the tendency of written characters to have a direction, most often following the direction of writing, symmetry: their tendency to be symmetrically formed, and the hasta + coda principle: the tendency of alpha- betic characters to be formed by one vertical line and one or two other lines attached to the main vertical. In this article, the author presents these principles and suggests some of their applications to the history of the runes. Keywords: semiotics, alphabet history, phanemes, kinemes, facilitation, homog- enization, heterogenization, vectoriality, symmetry, hasta + coda principle e flesta alfabets- och skrifthistoriker har intresserat sig för system- Dfrågor: relationen fonem.—.grafem, skriftens uppkomst, olika typer av skrift system och deras relation och genes. Bara några få, semio tiskt Fridell, Staffan. “Tendenser i skrifttecknens utveckling: Alfabet och runor.” Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 6 (2015, publ. 2016): 7–19. With a summary in English: “Tendencies in the development of writing signs: Alphabets and runes.” © 2016 Staffan Fridell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License and available free of charge at http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-278879. 8 • Staffan Fridell inriktade forskare har försökt att systematisera och generalisera empi- riska iakttagelser om de enskilda skrifttecknens formut veckling över tiden. Främst står William C. Watt, professor emeritus i Cognitive sciences vid University of California, Irvine, USA (Watt 1979; 1984; 1988a; 1988b; 1989a; 1989b; 1994a; 1994b; 1994c; 2002; 2012), och Herbert E. Brekle, professor emeritus i Allgemeine Sprachwissen schaft, Universität Regens burg, Tyskland (Brekle 1987; 1994a; 1994b; 1994c; 1995a; 1995b; 1996; 1997a; 1997b), som båda har genomfört omfattande studier av de väster ländska alfabetens utveckling och formulerat allmänna principer med stort förklarings värde, ett förklaringsvärde som jag menar beror på att de iakt­tagna tendenserna och principerna är funktionellt motiverade. Watt gör en principiellt viktig distinktion mellan de linjer och andra seg ment som visuellt formar skrifttecknet, vilka han kallar fanem, och de rö relser med skriftredskapet som producerar dessa segment, kalladekinem (Watt 1979, 59; 1988a, 122; 1984, 1544, 1547). Motsvarande distinktion fångas av motsatsparet production complexity : decoding complexity hos Rein hard Köhler (2008, 6). En konsekvens av att kinembegreppet starkt betonas är att skrivredskap och skriftmaterial antas ha stor betydelse för skrifttecknens utformning och utveckling. Här rör det sig främst om de redskap och material som har varit mest frekvent använda för skriften, vilket i allmänhet betyder de red- skap och material som har använts för vardaglig skrift. För runornas del utgår jag, liksom flera forskare tidigare, från att trä har varit det mest an- vända skriftmaterialet och att runornas former påverkats av att de i första hand ristats med kniv i trä. I princip alla
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